The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

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View Poll Results: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - Total Series Rating

The quality for this iteration was really a mixed bag, I have to say. I'm not expecting high levels like other people here, but what I did expect was some form of consistency. Sadly, it didn't really happen, and the art shifts in many of the episodes of Endless Eight were cringe-worthy (yes, I watched it all). This seemed to have reversed near the end (how apt), but it was probably done only so the show would come back in line with the art style used in Episode 00: Koi no Mikuru Densetsu (and thus not too jarring).

Voice Actors: 7

Eh, I've got a tin ear for Voice Actors (I can name only TWO VAs for certain that I can recognize every time, and that's Kawasumi Ayako and Wakamoto Norio), so I can't really say I appreciate the VAs themselves per se, but I did enjoy their performances when the situation called for really emotionally charged scenes. Kyon nearly blowing up on Haruhi near the end of Sighs was one of these.

Script: 7

The company was working with what little that they had for the Timeline, but it's here where we see that KyoAni's creative pool where it comes to the script is found lacking.

Soundtrack: 7

Again, tin ear with regards to these kinds of things, though I have to agree that if there was a song to be used for an OP, SUPER DRIVER was NOT it. I'd have preferred to have one of the songs in the Character CDs to have been used, but there you have it.

Editing: 7

Err, not really a major in Cinematography so can't really say much in this area, though some scene transitions and camera angle choices struck me as odd.

True, most of the Endless Eight episodes, if taken on their own merit, are good episodes. The trouble is that people can't see get past that there are six episodes that are virtually the same, and two others that are partly the same (the first and last ones).

Each one was well voiced, most were well animated. And the story worked for each one. Just together they start to wear on the mental health of the viewer. I was even tired of it after seven weeks...though I did have fun talking about it to someone who doesn't watch the series, because it is actually funny to describe what is happening and see the reaction you get when you tell someone about this show that is repeating the same plot/situation/script week after week. And then telling them it is animated completely differently each week. The puzzled looks are priceless, because having the same plot and other things sounds no different that a lot of sitcoms or many other forms of television of late, but to find out this is animated, and then reanimated completely differently somehow defies all logic. And then to describe how well it is animated throws them for another loop. Then to do it to them again two or four weeks later, when the Endless Eight has still not ended (or just ended). Defies logic, but is fun to see the reactions. Also the description of the solution with its over the top heroic victory charge music, overly dramatic yelling of a mundane solution....its perfect for conversation.

Then there is Sigh. A simple D-grade high school movie project...until you point out what everyone involved is...and that the reality warper/god doesn't know anything about her powers. All is more or less fine and dandy...Mikuru's being abused, Kyon's annoyed, Itsuki's still smiling, and Yuki is there, sometimes reading even....then comes the first Mikuru Beam....situation is no longer normal. Red Alert.

BLR was a good starter and an important plot point. Probably the most important story this year of the lot. Just its important for later more than now.

Well there is the mental fatigue, and I really suspect that, combined with the lack of expected resolution, that lowered the opinion of people for the franchise... And Haruhi turning into Yui for two episode.

Geez, this is a difficult one. I'm almost tempted to write a long essay on why this deserves a 10 just to annoy Kaioshin sama out, but I don't think that would help my credibility in the future. In general the E8 made me laugh for all the wrong reasons (mainly laughing at the fanbase and hatebase), and the non post modern type of episodes were quite decent in their own right. Not exactly a let down, but since I never considered the first season to be anything neaing a masterpiece it's not like I came with impossible to meet expectations. The series had to work with some of the weakest arcs in the Haruhi franchise, and well, whether it did it well is debatable, but at least it managed to satisfy me, even if it's not the next ARIA or Cross Game for me. Overall, I guess I'll give it an 8. Mainly because of you guys who hated Endless Eight. Watching your reactions every release day made my day.

Some may say it's a case of laughing at the series rather than laughing with it, but well, I'm laughing in the end I guess. Wahaha.

Dang it Avalon, you c(XD LOL)-block Shirou and Reinforce, but don't protect his mind in other ways? What is wrong, you woman?
Friendship, be made! Magical power, gather! Starlight Breaker.... this world!

It is? I thought it was "Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating." You know, with the 06 run included?

Then again, I suppose when something like Boredom is included, it deserves that one 4-vote.

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. . . okay, now that I've had my liquor medication, we can begin the overall series review of Haruhi Suzumiya! I will be doing two reviews, in parallel. One of just the 2009 episodes, and the 2009 episodes as they fit into the overall 28 episode framework.

Animation Quality
2009 - 8 . . . that's right, an 8. Yes, BLR featured Freaky Kyon, and there were some corners cut in some episodes of Endless Eight, but everything else was excellent.
Whole Series - 9. Haruhi is a beautifully animated series. Yes, there were a couple places in 2009 where a corner or two might've been cut, but there were places like that in 2006 as well. For animation highlights, 2009 gave us Sighs. 2006 gave us Live A Live.

Voice Acting
2009 - 9. I watched 2006 in dub only. Now that I've seen 2009, I went back to the 2006 DVDs and switched between the dub and original language tracks. I felt that 2009's voice acting was better than 2006's.
Whole Series - 7. Yes, I know about twenty total words of Japanese. But I learned them all in 2009. I didn't learn them from the 2006 airing which, at the time I saw it, didn't seem especially notable to my ears. Maybe I'm just weird. Maybe being exposed to fourteen straight episodes of Japanese repeated three times apiece has tuned my hearing to the nuances of Japanese voice-acting. Maybe I just need another beer.

Script
2009 - 7. Well, expending expending eight episodes on Endless Eight was an expansion of the original material that was of . . . questionable wisdom. But, unlike the Cylons of the new Battlestar Galactica series, Kadokawa/KyoAni really did have a plan. We'll see how the movie turns out to see if this plan was worth it.
Overall - 9. The source material is . . . dense. Very dense. My collection of Haruhi light novels (and my computer, every time I visit the pirate light novel site,) are so dense, they bend light. KyoAni has done a superb job adapting it for television expanding it (for the most part) where expanding it would have the best effect, and keeping the storytelling tight and muscular . . . easily accessible to new viewers.

Soundtrack
2009 - 8. Super Driver and Tomare are catchy songs in their TV-sized versions. The new BGM really made Sighs worth watching for me.
Overall - 8. I think there are maybe two people on the entire planet who have managed to escape seeing Hare Hare Yukai and the "Haruhi dance" on IdiotYoutube. I don't think I can really say much more than that, other than What the hell did Kyon's sister do to deserve a character CD?

Editing
2009 - 6. The Cylons have a plan . . . the Cylons have a plan . . . the Cylons . . . okay, the plan pretty much kinda sucked. Kadokawa's planning a Disappearance movie, we've got fourteen episodes of new material to fill, and Sighs/BLR won't take up any more than six. So what to do. Make the viewers' eyes bleedExpand Endless Eight to Eight Episodes!!!111 Brilliant! Only not so much so. C'mon, production committee, you've got Tanigawa on a leash. Couldn't you have wrung another anime-original episode or three out of him?
Overall - 8. As I said in some other review section, the source material is astonishingly dense. If I were Kyon, they'd be taking me away in a padded wagon before I went through half the shit that he does. And KyoAni has turned it into a well-made 28 episode show. It loses a point for making Endless Eight so long, but they didn't have too many options if they wanted to save the Disappearance-related material for later.

Enjoyment
2009 - 8. I enjoyed this run about as much as I could enjoy any show where I didn't understand more than about twenty of the words that were spoken. It reminded me of my high school French class, when we used to watch French movies. None of them I really got because they were all in bloody French. Sure, there was a lot of Endless Eight, but it's possible to get a sort of enjoyment out of watching that too. And, much to my surprise, the DVD sales seem to bear this out.
Overall - 10. That's right. A ten. Note this on your calendars, ladies and gentlemen, for this will never happen again. I love this series. Why, I just got finished watching Episode 00 and the last three episodes of the 2006 run. And I've seen them quite a few times already. Everything else seems to take a while before I feel like watching it again, but not Haruhi.

Emotional Involvement
2009 - 7. They tried. They really tried with these meta-art stunts that they pulled. Make us feel Yuki's pain by taking us through eight iterations of her Five-Hundred Year Summer From Hell at the Hands of Sociopath Sue. Cut Sighs like one long movie, which could've been titled The Brutal Torture Unseen Since the InquisitionPassion of the ChristMikuru Asahina. It was a bit ham-handed, but it's part of the Haruhi Experience(tm). On the up-side, this part of the run gave some needed depth to Itsuki's character, and some of what goes on behind-the-scenes of the SOS-dan.
Overall - 8. I admit it. I get all emotional when I see Haruhi and Kyon. Even though they spend much of their time in denial about each other, and Haruhi has rightfully earned the moniker of Sociopath Sue. I want to see what happens to them. I want to see how Kyon will get himself out of whatever jam Haruhi has gotten him into. This series doesn't quite get a 9 from me because the rest of the SOS-dan is a set of interchangeable cardboard cutouts following well-defined tropes. Of course, one would argue that this is exactly how Haruhi/Kyon have set it up, since this is fundamentally a story about them.

Total Rating
2009 - 7.6: The Good: New material, new music, great visuals, and great voice acting. Sugita really takes it away this year. The Bad: Sociopath Sue and the Stockholm Syndrome Band. Questionable script and editing decisions. Mikuru drowning the Earth five times over in her tears. The Ugly: Itsuki in a Speedo. We have entered an endless recursion of time. We have entered an endless recursion of time. We have entered an endless recursion of time.
Overall - 8.1: The Good: Muscular storytelling, luscious visuals, art that isn't over-the-top. The Bad: Useless moeblobs. Still waiting for -ing Disappearance.

Let's see... good music, crappy art, fluid animation, asinine marketing shenanigans, great voice acting and the travesty that is Endless Eight. Also considering that only about half the episodes are worth watching... this gets a 5/10.

The poll represents your total series rating for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kairin

In your review, you may choose to provide an overall rating for the 2009 episodes on their own, but in consideration for the way the show was actually aired on TV, the poll is designed to reflect the series on a whole with the new episodes added in.

So if you're giving it a 4 or 5, keep in mind that said vote includes the 14 episodes from 2006 as well, not just E8... or those two other stories that I forget.

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So if you're giving it a 4 or 5, keep in mind that said vote includes the 14 episodes from 2006 as well, not just E8... or those two other stories that I forget.

Kogetsu... the OP made it perfectly clear that you can make a vote based purely on the 2009 episodes. You yourself are quoting the pertinent section... you're simply choosing to downplay it by bolding the "but..." portion that came after it.

And, as Kaoishin rightly suspected, most people are choosing to vote based purely on the 2009 episodes.

The reason, I suspect, is this... why should the slate of 2006 episodes get credited again?

Many people here already voted on that back in 2006. As such, many people want to strictly judge the slate of new episodes that we experienced as more or less a second season. Thankfully, the OP allows us to do that.

Also, to be blunt... I really don't think that 3 year old episodes (as superb as they are) should save KyoAni from getting a couple notches knocked off its ratings due to its awful E8 approach.

Many people here already voted on that back in 2006. As such, many people want to strictly judge the slate of new episodes that we experienced as more or less a second season. Thankfully, the OP allows us to do that.

Ha? There was never an Overall Series Impressions poll for 2006. Also, most of the people that are counting only the new 2009 episodes did not even post in the original thread. Do a little more research next time.
Whoa! Major brain fart... humbled once again.

I got too used to the overall impressions being compressed in one thread that I didn't bother to click on when I found the old one. Sorry.

Ha? There was never an Overall Series Impressions poll for 2006. Also, most of the people that are counting only the new 2009 episodes did not even post in the original thread. Do a little more research next time.

I'm afraid I should say the same to you ^^

Actually, the 2006 airing had:

1) An Overall Series Impressions Thread (here)
2) A Total Series Rating Thread with Poll (here)
3) Even a Favourite Episode Poll (here)

To be honest, I should really apologize. I just checked, and most of the people posting a rating for the series apparently didn't vote. My mistake.

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WARNING: Kogetsu Shirogane cannot be held accountable for any actions taken by someone else. Potential side effects of communicating with this user include headaches, mild confusion, insanity, delirium, and jumping into fires. Do not expose this user to sunlight or water or feed this user after midnight.

I still don't see why anyone still hates E8. KyoAni is pretty much the most boring studio when it comes to adaptations... they pretty much stick to the script and don't bother being creative.

But this time they tried something, while sticking to the script (sorta), and failed (your opinion)?

Hahaha, I just still can't get over the fact that toward the beginning of each episode of E8... Haruhi would say something along the lines of: "You can never get back the time you lost." and "You can only live through each summer once."... and there the viewer was listening to this line said 8 times over 8 weeks (during the summer I might add) basically watching the same thing... that is some twisted humor there.

1) An Overall Series Impressions Thread (here)
2) A Total Series Rating Thread with Poll (here)

Well... will you look at that? I made a lengthy Haruhi review (on page 10), and a 9 rating, on that poll thread. Reading that old post of mine from early 2008 is interesting... most of my views on Haruhi have remained the same, but, if anything, the anime moved up a little bit in my list of all-time favorite animes.

Perhaps one good thing about this year of Haruhi episodes is that it helped me to see that Haruhi 2006 truly was a masterpiece, in many ways.

Thanks, Pellissier, for pointing out these Haruhi 2006 series review and total series rating threads.

Man, was the 2009!series different from the 2006!series. The second season had a much, MUCH darker tone to it than the first season. I could feel pain coming from everyone at some point in the series: Yuki's agony during the Endless Eight; Mikuru's despair during the movie filming; and Haruhi's shock when Kyon tried to hit her. I admit that it became painful to watch, especially when Kyon is asking everyone's opinions on Haruhi (he did, right?).

I give Emotional Involvement a 10/10, because it got such a strong reaction from me.

Spoiler for Thoughts about the animation quality.:

Oh, KyoAni, you never fail to impress me with your amazing backgrounds and flowing hair. The animation was so good that I would find myself scrolling back a little to watch a clip again, because the animation was SO GOOD! The movements were fluid, and even background characters got a lot of detail put into them. I can see that KyoAni worked very hard at this. However, I noticed that the style everyone was being drawn in was kind of similar to K-ON!. Although it didn't feel quite right at some moments, at least Kyon didn't look like a chipmunk when he was screaming at Haruhi over the drunk Mikuru.

I give the Animation a 9.5/10, because although I looove the animation, I could still see some leftovers from K-ON!.

Characters: 10/10

Spoiler for Suzumiya Haruhi:

Where do I begin with this girl? Well, I think I should have paid attention to TVTropes when they said she was a bit of a loony, but I think I had to see it for myself to confirm it. And man, was I convinced she had a few screws loose. She was so willing to get Mikuru drunk, throw her in a pond, and whack her on the head with a megaphone that I couldn't even comprehend it. She doesn't even feel sorry. She calls Mikuru her "toy". She unconciously put Yuki through Hell when she made that last week of summer loop ~15,000 times. She pushed Kyon over his limit and he almost hit her. And she STILL gets her way in the end. Excuse me miss, but WTF are you doing?

Despite Haruhi being the way she is, she's still an awesome character because she has depth. Sure, she's a crazy girl who forces a helpless girl into embarrassing costume, but so were a lot of other anime characters. She feels a wide range of emotions, and literally warps the world around her. You have to give her credit for that.

Spoiler for Kyon:

Kyon is quite different from your average bear. I mean, male protagonist. When a harem of lovely girls come into his life, he doesn't just sit there and accept it! Well, he certainly accepts Mikuru, but that's not the point here. He asks questions, fights back, and isn't afraid to take matters into his own hands...literally. He's cynical, sarcastic, ruthlessly blunt, and I love him. I love seeing unique male characters because, hey, animes with lots and lots of pretty girls don't really seem to spend a lot of time on the guys. But with KyoAni (and a lot of other anime), the guys are just as much as lookers. Kyon's as round a character as Okazaki Tomoya and Yagami Light, and for that, I commend him.

Spoiler for Asahina Mikuru:

There are so many things I want to tell SOS Brigade's personal moeblob. She's irresistably cute, and you just can't help but love her. She's also rather pitiful and kind of pathetic. What I'd like to say to her is "GROW A SPINE!" Seriously. She's cute, but that doesn't excuse her behavior. She doesn't fight back. Not ONCE does she say, "Enough is enough, Suzumiya-san! Stop forcing me into this racy costumes or I'll report you for sexual harrassment!" She just...goes along with it. It's appalling. It's as appalling as Haruhi actually harrassing her. It's hard to sympathize for her because she doesn't resist. She's more pitiful than anything else.

Spoiler for Nagato Yuki:

Yuki was really fleshed out in this season. A lot. Every episode, she's coming closer to having real human emotions. It became more evident with each E8 episode. She started to look more and more tired out, more frustrated, more sad, almost? Yet she can't do anything. Haruhi isn't doing anything to her physically. She isn't treating Yuki like Mikuru, but rather, she's affecting Yuki through time loops and other crazy paranormal stuff. She ends up being relied on a lot, and it starts to get to her after a while. Yuki is more sympathetic than Mikuru because there must be so much pressure on her to help keep Haruhi in line (I mean, the others end up depending on her most of the time), and she can't even express her emotions. Deep down inside, I think she just wants to be normal.

Spoiler for Itsuki Koizumi:

I never really liked Itsuki as much as the others, I'll be honest. He's always sucking up to Haruhi, agreeing with her ever whim and letting her abuse Mikuru. Plus, he always has that smile on his face and it really bothered me. However, this season made me like him a little more. Or rather, gain a newfound respect for him. I don't know the details too well, but he's kind of in a corner. He doesn't go against Haruhi because he can't. He has to keep, basically, a poker face all the time. He can't let the others see how stressed he is because they don't see him as that kind of person.

Actually, I'm starting to like him more because of the Haruhi Abridged Series. Yay Sailor Pothead!

Spoiler for Soundtrack:

Not much to say here, actually. The music was beautiful as always. I really loved the music playing in one of the E8 episodes, when Kyon sees Yuki looking at masks. It was such a Spirited Away moment.

Soundtrack gets a 10/10.

Overall, Haruhi is an epic win. I was so glad I got to experience this show during my lifetime and ride the rollarcoaster with everyone, y'know? Series gets a 10/10 from me...Hehe, I give perfect scores too easily xD

However, my point still stands that people who did not share their thoughts on the 2006 eps on the above threads are being a bit unfair when they only count the new 2009 eps on their reviews here (which applies to most who are disregarding the 2006 episodes from their overall impressions).